The prisoners are watching TV, where images similar to themselves are projected-as opposed to the fantastical figures of yesteryear. This is to show how our culture has become fixated with simple human interaction, like the modern Sitcom and reality television, rather than fantasy and other, more creative forms of escapist media. The people watching the screen aren't shackled like those in Plato's cave, because we are always free to escape the realm of television and Internet-it is by choice that we stay.
The puppeteers are large media companies, such as CNN, Time Warner and Fox (among others). This is to show how large media corporations control our realities through the media we consume, and how their agendas are directly passed on to the consumer and taken as truth-just like the shadow puppets in Plato's cave were accepted to be enormous.
The sun, which Plato used to represent truth and enlightenment, is a novel, because reading is the most basic and important form of media consumption, and it's also much more truthful and thought provoking than binge-watching Toddlers and Tiaras, or watching endless cat videos online (both of which I've definitely been guilty of on multiple occasions). The stairs to enlightenment in my cave are novels I found to be of significance to myself and society as a whole, including 1984, Fahrenheit 451, and Oryx and Crake.
In hindsight, I think my cave was weirdly detailed, but I also think it accurately portrays a modern, media-and-pop-culture-based way of interpreting Plato's Cave!
Also, the allegory made me think of The Cave by Mumford & Sons (below)
:)
PS: sorry I wrote such a book, it didn't look that long before I posted it I swear.....
ReplyDeleteI heart books. :)
ReplyDeleteI am so glad you brought up this idea that we are willfully blind in your drawing of the modern cave. Doesn't it just seem a bit crazy sometimes. Have you ever all of a sudden realized, say, that you have spent hours on a computer, doing some supposedly important task, and then one distraction, one giggle, one entertainment leads to another, and - boom - the day is done. You have not been outside. You may not have even talked face-to-face with anyone. I wonder, what will this sort of caving do to the human capacity to know and know better and know more over time? Are we losing something? Or is this just a really awesome cave and asking these critical questions is just a frustrating way of missing out on a good TV show/Fallon clip on Youtube/cat video etc...?